Surface finishes having a smooth surface are desirable for many manufactured items. Reducing the roughness of a conventional ground surface takes a long time and leads to an extreme sensitivity to grinding imperfections, so that the product can only be made on specialized high-gloss mills. Any imperfection appears immediately and ruins the product impression. Also, a residual directionality is often left in the surface so that the product cannot easily be mixed with others at different directions.
A matted surface, on the other hand, tends to be rougher and to look very grey. For many applications, the roughness is too great. In addition, the surfaces are difficult to produce and dirty, since roughened rolls tend to plough the surface and leave large amounts of fines which hinder further processing unless cleaned. The smearing caused by relative speeds between strip and work roll tends to limit the reductions and speeds that can be used in manufacture. Otherwise, an unusable surface will result.